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Saturn, Moon, Venus Conjunction

I have been star gazing recently, due to the exceptionally clear skys. Tonight, the moon and two planets were visible together, so I tried to capture their image. The moon was really bright and is blown out, but I generally got what I wanted. Any tips for doing this better would be welcomed.

20s f/2.8 at 17.0mm iso100 (straight out of camera, with added sharpening)
(Al little lens ghosting can be seen above the stars above Venus)

Hi Joe, neat shot with the moon and planets lined up like that. I would have probably shot two different exposures, one for the planets and one for the moon. It would be a simple matter to combine the two in post or extract the properly exposed moon and place it in the original.

I had actually tried taking an image of the moon for the very purpose you suggested. However, in exposing for the planets, the moon was so bright it caused flare and ghosting (if those are the right terms) to the extent that pasting in the properly exposed moon was impossible without extensive photo re-work. Here is a shot of the moon (still overexposed)

The only other thing I can think of is to try making a spot neutral density filter where the moon is. This might be accomplished by placing a piece of glass or plastic in front of the lens, then darkening the area in front of the moon with a marker pen, for example. But... that is a lot of work, especially for a so-so shot like the original.

yes. I have been watching all three bodies for the last several weeks and am starting to understand their relationships in the sky. I am in great hopes of upgrading my astrophotography capability sometime this year.